Heading into 2010, I’d venture to guess that 99 percent of baseball card collectors knew that there would be only one official producer of Major League Baseball cards. And we all knew that Upper Deck was going to go ahead with products of their own, even without the blessing of The Man. It was something we as a collecting community were anxious to see. What would these cards look like? Would they look like many of the other unlicensed cards with logos and team names Photoshopped out? Would Upper Deck find a new way to do things? Well, Upper Deck certainly didn’t help the collecting world when it decided to release product information WITHOUT images. And so we were left in the dark. If we wanted to know what the cards would look like, we were going to have to buy some to figure it out.

And so there I was on Tuesday after having received an e-mail from my local card shop about the Upper Deck Series One arrival. I made it there before they even opened the first box. I didn’t want to go overboard, I knew the packs would run somewhere between $5 and $6 because of the number of cards per pack, so I decided before hand that I would buy three packs figuring that would get me 60 cards with a shot at one of the three hits in the box.

I’ll say this up front, my packs sucked. I am a Red Sox collector and there was not a single BoSox card to find in the packs. There also were no hits and the best cards, in my opinion, were base cards of Evan Longoria, Matt Weiters and cards of Yankee Stadium and Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, where I have attended more than 30 games during my life.

Check out the small picture of Longoria. Curious George?

I digress. What I did notice though is the photographs that Upper Deck used on these unlicensed cards — it seems like the majority of them were of the player following through on their throw, swing or pitch. See for yourself.

I initially liked the photos, but after thumbing through 60 cards and noticing that many of them look alike, it started to piss me off a bit.

Speaking of pissing me off, what the eff is up with this Biography insert set? Are we REALLY seeing a redux of Documents? And these Portrait cards are an uglier version of an already ugly design we saw in 2005 Origins. Gah!

And lastly, I will say I was quite amused with Upper Deck Star Rookie Cards. Check out the Rookie Card Logo. Seems like a big Eff You to MLBP.

The 2006 Rookie Card Crop is perhaps one of the best in recent memory. We had Evan Longoria, Justin Upton, Clayton Kershaw, Alex Gordon, Cameron Maybin and Jon Lester, just to name a few. But in most of these cases, it seems the only way to get each player’s first MLB card is to bust a bunch of Chrome-laden product or shell out good money to buy the Chrome single. Of course, that’s if you’re looking for the high-dollar rookie card of each player.

Over the last three years it seems as if the hobby has forgotten about another product from that year that featured almost all of the aforementioned players and more — 2006 Bowman Heritage.

Now I have no real stock in this product other than what you see above and a few other low-priced cards from the set. But the fact that there are cheap versions of each player’s first MLB card in this set makes it interesting to me. Don’t get me wrong, no one is going to mistake either the above Justin Upton or Evan Longoria for being worth more than $5 or so. But for collectors on a budget — ones who cannot justify spending $250 for a Longoria Bowman Chrome Draft autograph — this Bowman Heritage set offers a nice alternative.

In addition to the base cards, there are also prospect autographs seeded within the packs. That insert set is headlined by ON-CARD autos of Alex Gordon, Cameron Maybin and Justin Upton.

This product was almost instantly shunned by the Hobby upon release due to the asinine “parallels” that are damn-near indistinguishable from the base cards. Supposedly there are “white” versions of each base card, but unless you’re going to spend several minutes pouring over two versions of the same card, they are almost impossible to differentiate.

Nonetheless, the result is a product that has largely been forgotten. This has afforded budget collectors an opportunity to snag some rookie-year cards of some excellent rising stars.

The packages keep coming, and with each one the pile of cards on my desk that needs to be scanned has grown. While I’m still waiting for a few other packages, I may as well do this post now before it gets way too overwhelming. Enjoy. Continue reading →

Stopped by one of my local shops (Stevens Creek Sports Cards) today to pick up the new Beckett and some boxes for my sets. I also wound up buying three packs of 2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects as well. Keep reading to see the break. Continue reading →

After buying three lose packs of this line on Friday, I admittedly was curious what else I could pull. I read somewhere that there are autographs in here, and then when I looked at this blaster today, it offered the same thing. So I decided to try one just for kicks, especially since the box offered 9 packs for just $15. Continue reading →

Just wanted to drop a quick thanks to Patrick from “It’s Just Old Cardboard” and Jason from “Bozeman Breaker” for their large trades. With the help of these two individuals, I was able to knock out about 220 cards from my set wants, and add some new Red Sox to my collection. There are a few other trades in the works. If you’ve contacted me about anything, rest assured a return e-mail is coming. Also, the trade list is being updated as I write this.

The arrival of my Daisuke Matsuzaka through the mail (TTM) autograph yesterday re-energized my faith in the TTM process. I think I might actually send out a few in the next month or so. But that card’s arrival not only made me want to send more out, it also reminded me of what I already had — autographs of 2008 Rookie of the Year winners Evan Longoria and Geovany Soto.